BEIJING — The construction of a project linking China's two mega water infrastructures — the Three Gorges project and the South-to-North Water Diversion Project — started on July 7, a new move to further transfer water to the country's dry north and improve its national water network.

Vice-Premier Han Zheng, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of a leading group on high-quality follow-up development of the water diversion project, announced the start of the new project's construction at a meeting on the matter held via video link.

The meeting was presided over by Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

As the first step of the follow-up construction of the water diversion program, the new project will channel water from the Three Gorges Reservoir area to the Hanjiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze River.

The new project is scheduled to be completed in nine years. Once completed, it is expected to increase the amount of water diverted from the middle route of the water diversion project to North China.

The middle route begins at the Danjiangkou Reservoir along the Hanjiang River in Central China, and runs northeastward to Beijing and Tianjin.